


Peek-a-boo Lessons

by hufflepirate



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Babies, Clones, Fluff, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Toddlers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 02:32:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13695036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: Kuron was never a baby, which makes knowing how to respond to a suddenly-deaged Keith and Hunk a little touch and go, for a bit. Luckily, he's good at watching and learning.(AKA: That one time Silverheartlugia2000 asked for a deaged Keith who can't control his shifting and I thought it was the cutest idea ever, but then made it about Kuron somehow.)





	Peek-a-boo Lessons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silverheartlugia2000](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverheartlugia2000/gifts).



> Thanks again to Silverheart for prompting this on tumblr!

Ronnie sat on one of the couches between the training deck and the paladins’ (and his) rooms, enjoying the quiet.  Ever since Keith and Hunk had been turned into toddlers, the Castle had been filled with strange noises, and it had set him on edge.

If it hadn’t been obvious enough that he was a clone before, it sure was now.  He’d adjusted to the idea in the weeks since they figured it out, and most of the team had forgiven him for it once they could neutralize the dangers Haggar had built into him, and things had been getting better.  But he knew Shiro must have been familiar with the sounds of small children.  He _must_ have.  Ronnie just didn’t have the memories that went that far back.

He stood up, getting ready to go train again.  Moving made it easier to keep his mind off the big, empty gaps in his memories that always reminded him that he didn’t _have_ any memories.  The gaps were what was real, but that was sometimes even scarier than the fact that the memories were fake.

As soon as he was on his feet, a shrill shriek split the air, raising the hair on the back of his neck and arm.  That was a new noise, and something deep and instinctive told him it was a  _bad noise_.

Lance was already running before Ronnie could make it around the end of the couch, sprinting toward Keith’s bunk, where they’d put the babies.  Moving toward the hallway made Ronnie feel better, too, but since he didn’t know what to do when he got there, he didn’t hurry, trailing tentatively after Lance.

By the time he caught up to Lance, the teenager was cradling a very frightened Hunk, bouncing him up and down and making soothing shushing noises while the toddler blubbered into his shoulder.  Ronnie stopped next to them, feeling a sudden rush of uselessness wash over him.  This was the other thing he hated about the paladins being children.  He’d never learned a single thing about children.  He’d never even  _been_  a child.

Lance looked up at him.  "Hey, Ronnie, could you check on - oh, no, never mind. Here comes Coran.“  Sure enough, Coran was hurrying down the hall toward them.  "Hey,” Lance shouted around him, “Can you check on Keith?  I can’t figure out what freaked Hunk out and I don’t wanna take him back in there until we know.”

“How did he get out?” Ronnie asked, “Did you forget to turn off the automatic release on the door?”

Lance glared at him, some of the force of it undermined by the fact that he was still bouncing Hunk.  "Why don’t _you_ go check on Keith, too?“ he asked.

Ronnie blushed, looking down.  That hadn’t been the time, then.  He was never sure when to talk and when not to.  They thought probably the Galra hadn’t wanted him to be good at helping, but he was tired of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

“Oh my!” Coran said from inside Keith’s room.  Ronnie hurried over.  Inside the room, Keith was hidden behind Coran, and it was only when he walked all the way up to the bunk that he could see the boy.  He stopped short.

“What’s going on?” Lance shouted from the hallway.

“He’s  _purple_!” Ronnie answered, shocked.

“I think it’s his Galra blood showing,” Coran answered, “But he’s never looked Galra before.”

“Oh, sweet, really?" Lance answered from the hallway, "That’s kind of awesome.”

Keith had been asleep, just like they’d left him, but as they talked, he started waking up, squirming in his sleep as he got closer to consciousness.  His eyes fluttered open, the bright yellow sending a spike of fear through Ronnie’s chest.  The feeling settled uncomfortably in his stomach like a solid thing, and he realized he was breathing a little fast.  He blushed again, trying to get ahold of himself.  He’d known he didn’t feel good about being near the Blades of Marmora, but being afraid of the baby just made him feel silly.  He forced himself to take a step closer, instead of backing off.

Keith looked around, one tiny clawed hand reaching out toward his side, where Hunk had been.  When he realized Hunk wasn’t there, he screwed his face up and then he was suddenly  _wailing_.  Coran moved quickly, scooping him up and pulling him close.  Keith twisted in his arms, reaching for the bed like he still thought Hunk might be there.

Coran was bobbing up and down now, and Ronnie committed the motion to his swiss-cheese memory again, in case he needed it.  Was that what  _everybody_  did with their babies?  Keith’s cries got quieter, but he kept fussing.

“I think he misses Hunk,” Ronnie suggested.

“He might, but if Hunk’s afraid of him, I’m not sure taking him out there will make things better.”

Before Ronnie could answer or Coran could make up his mind, Lance walked in, apparently convinced that the danger was gone or imaginary.  Coran’s grip on Keith tightened a little as Lance approached.

“Ok, buddy, he’s right here,” Lance said, still focused on Hunk even as he walked.  After all the fighting and sparring and flying they’d done, Ronnie suspected that the way Lance could walk without looking away from the baby shouldn’t seem impressive, but it did.  "He’s right here," Lance said gently to the baby, "Look over here. See him? That's Keith.“

Hunk was quiet now, and when Lance pointed, he looked.  Keith made another soft fussing noise in Coran’s arms and reached out toward Lance and Hunk, but as soon as his claws came close to Hunk, the other boy shrieked again, babbling something Ronnie couldn’t make out, and buried his face in Lance’s shoulder.

“Quiznak!” Lance said.

“Don’t curse in front of the babies,” Coran said, bouncing Keith up and down again as he started crying, still grabbing for Hunk.

Ronnie didn’t know much about babies, but he _did_ know what Keith felt like.  The tiny Galra boy was a little scary, but that didn’t mean he could just let Keith feel the way he’d felt when the rest of the team was afraid of him.  He didn’t have a perfect memory, but he knew enough about Keith to know he didn’t deserve that.

Back when they’d found the babies, Pidge had given Hunk her finger to hold, and Keith was still grabbing out away from Coran like he wanted something.  Ronnie stepped forward, offering one mechanical finger to the baby.  The little claws of one hand wrapped around it, but he was clearly still upset.

Coran looked Ronnie in the eye and he held still, feeling nervous again.  Coran adjusted his grip on Keith so that he had a hand free to rub the boy’s back.  Ronnie took another step closer, so Keith wouldn’t be stretched out so far over open air.  It felt dangerous to be this close to Coran, and he couldn’t figure out if that was Galra conditioning or just his own anxiety about being around the team.  He was never sure anymore.  He felt like he was being measured, and that wasn’t ever a good feeling.

Before Coran could make up his mind, or at least before he could say anything, Keith hiccupped, startling himself badly enough that he stopped fussing.  Two hiccups later, his claws suddenly retracted, fur creeping back into his skin until he looked human again.  The hairs rose on Coran’s arms, but Ronnie felt something in his stomach relax.  He wasn’t sure what that meant about himself.  He wasn’t sure what it meant about Keith.

When they reintroduced the babies to each other again, both of them calmed down, and they were soon back to the same smiles and laughter Ronnie was almost getting used to.

 

* * *

 

The next time Keith transformed, they were all sitting around the couches together, and Pidge was playing peek-a-boo with him.  She almost jumped out of her skin, too shocked to continue, but Keith was clearly still trying to play with her, and Ronnie gave in to an impulse he’d been ignoring.

“What are you doing?” Pidge asked as he slid to the floor next to her.

“I want to play.  Can you teach me?”

Laughing at him seemed to get her over her momentary shock, which he guessed was good, but then she  _did_  help him and it turned out that peek-a-boo was  _fun_.  He wasn’t sure if he’d ever made silly faces before, and Lance kept teasing him about making scary faces instead of funny ones, but Keith kept laughing, and that was what counted.

Keith changed back and forth at random, giggling particularly fiercely any time he shifted and a few times when he hadn’t.  Ronnie thought maybe he was trying to do it on purpose and sometimes thought he had when he hadn’t.

“ _Quiznak_ , that’s cute,” Pidge said after the third time Keith transformed with an extra edge to his giggle.

“Don’t curse in front of the babies,” Coran said absently from his spot on the floor, where he was rolling a ball back and forth with Hunk and Allura.

 

* * *

 

Playtime had been good for Hunk and Keith.  Being together while Keith shifted back and forth and no one freaked out had been good for Hunk, and Ronnie was sure it must be easier for Keith not to have anyone afraid of him, even if the others said he probably wasn’t really old enough to understand what had happened.  Ronnie knew nothing about babies, but he knew about feeling other people's fear.  He was pretty sure Keith had known, baby or not.  Either way, things were good now, and that was a new and better feeling, one he was trying to learn to trust.

“We should leave,” Pidge said absently from her spot between him and Lance.

“Yeah,” Lance agreed.  None of them moved.

Keith had transformed again in his sleep, but this time Hunk had just snuggled closer.  Hunk was a chubby little thing, all round cheeks and arm rolls, and when Keith was human, he looked dangerously small next to him, too thin and too angular.  Like this, covered in soft purple fur, he didn’t seem so small.  They looked better matched, and Hunk seemed perfectly happy to grab onto Keith’s fur with his little fingers.

“You don’t think he’s pulling, do you?” Ronnie asked, almost reaching out to loosen Hunk’s fist.

“Nah, I think Keith would wake up if he was having his fur pulled,” Lance said.

“That’s still weird,” Pidge commented.

Ronnie wasn’t sure what it was going to mean for him, one day, that at least half of what he knew about babies came from a baby with fur.  But at least he was starting to know things about babies.  And at least he felt better now.  Not so afraid.

Keith yawned in his sleep, flashing sharp little fangs and sticking his tongue out, and Ronnie felt something swell in his chest, where before he’d just felt sick.

“ _Fuck_  that’s adorable,” Pidge whispered, “Look at his  _little pink tongue_.”

Ronnie wasn’t sure what was more shocking, the fact that that was what he’d felt, too, or the fact that what actually came out of his mouth in response was “Don’t curse in front of the babies.”

Lance snorted, reaching around Pidge to pat him on the shoulder.

“You got it, big guy.”

Lance didn’t seem mad, but it still felt like he’d given the wrong answer.  He needed to show them he understood, too.  He reached down and laid a finger against Keith’s hand, letting him grab it again with his claws.  "This is cute too,“ he whispered.

Pidge snorted this time, laughing at him.  "Show off.  That’s your claw-proof hand.”

“I said  _cute_ , not safe.”

She leaned her whole body affectionately into his side, and he almost forgot to breathe.  Was this - were things ok?  "Calm down, loser,“ she said, "I’m glad he likes you.”

He smiled.  They were all still looking for Shiro, but it was nice to know that things might be ok here for him anyway.


End file.
